Redefining indefinites

by Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen

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Title Statements

Full title :Redefining indefinites / Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, Claire Beyssade.

Summary

This volume explores the interpretation of indefinites and the constraints on their distribution by paying particular attention to key issues in the interface between syntax and semantics: the relation between the semantic properties of indefinite determiners and the denotation of indefinite DPs, their scope, and their behaviour in generic and conditional sentences. Examples come from French, other Romance languages and English. Central to the proposed analyses is a distinction between two types of entities, individualized entities and amounts. Weak indefinites are analyzed as existential generalized quantifiers over amounts and strong indefinites as either Skolem terms or generalized quantifiers over individualized entities. The up-to-date review of the literature and the new falsifiable proposals contained in this book will be of particular interest to linguistics students and scholars interested in the cross-linguistic semantics of indefinites.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:©2012.

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Springer
Place of Publication:Dordrecht
Language:eng
Publication Date:©2012.

The Physical Object

Description:xv, 268 pages ; : 25 cm

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9789400730014, 9400730012, 9400730020, 9789400730021
oclc:ocn760976565
LC Classification:P299.D43
Dewey Decimal:401/.43

Why Indefinites? -- Bare Noun Phrases -- Existential Sentences -- The Ambiguity of Indefinites : Towards a Denotational Definition of the Weak/Strong Distinction -- Disambiguating Indefinites -- The Scope of Indefinites -- Genericity, (In)Definiteness and Bare Nouns -- Dependent Indefinites in Donkey Sentences.